Knitting Zen

I said yesterday that I wanted to try working with felting yarn... so... since Downtown Dad and Bear have gone on a political field trip to Washington DC for a couple of days, and Tessie's social calendar was filled up with trips to the mall...I thought since I got all of my housework done, it would be safe for me to venture out to a craft store to see what it would cost to start yet another hobby.

To do the felting part, which is just basically shrinking an article that you have knitted, you have to use 100% wool yarn, so I went out and bought two of these 100% wool skeins of yarn.

One of these two packs of pointy-on-both-ends knitting needles - Size 8 mm...I'm going to assume that size is significant somewhere down the road....


...and one size 8 circular needle with 24 inch.... um... length of circularity.

Yikes...how did that wine glass get in there?

Anyway, according to the "Free Pattern Inside" the yarn label, that's all I'd need to knit a Felted Hat. Not that I'd go into this thinking that I could make a wearable hat my first go, but, it looked like pretty simple straight forward knitting.

Wrong.

Dear "Label-On-Yarn-Makers," I believe I need a rudimentary education in speaking Yarneese. M1, S2KP, K2tog, P2sso.... excuse me? Your attempts to explain your secret knitting code falls far short of those of us who are too cheap to buy a book on knitting actually peel off the lable, and attempt to follow your free pattern. Pictures, people. I need pictures!

So, in case any other knewbie knitters out there are trying to get in touch with their inner kneedleness, I share with you now my journey to Knitting Zen.

These first steps I dug out of my memory of watching my mom when I was 10, but in order to take this project from beginning to end, you have to start somewhere. It also doesn't help matters that Downtown Dad and Bear took my "good" camera, and left me with the substandard one.

1. First make a slip knot and slide it onto the needle


2. Then cast stitches on to the needle with more slip knots


3. Hold the needle with the stitches on in in your non-dominant hand, and slide the other needle under the first stitch.


4. Pull the yarn around the back of the empty needle and then between where they are crossed.


Then, here's the tricky part, bring the right needle's point down, and under the loop you just made with the yarn you pulled through the two needles flipping the stitch from the left needle to the right.

After scouring the Internet for patterns and explanations, I decided to just start knitting and see what I came up with. I started out with 15 stitches, ended up at one point with 75, then 150. Somewhere in the course of the evening, I decided not to make the hat, but to make a bowl because that sounded easier...
Somewhere also in the course of the evening, I had a few glasses of wine....

This is what I came up with. I have mad knitting skillz. Wicked mad.